Joe McNallyALEJANDRA LÓPEZ VÁZQUEZ

ENGLISH VIII

The arrival

On Saturday, Oct. 1st, I went to a conference by Joe McNally in FES Acatlán. I arrived at

8:30 a.m. at the entrance of the FES and I found many of my classmates. We decided to

wait in case someone else arrived but nobody came, so we started to look for the place

where the conference was going to take place. After asking a lot of people, we finally

found the place.

The Languaje of the Light

Joe McNally told us about his career as a photographer and showed us some of his

photos. When he showed a photo of Diana Ross, he laughed and said to us that surely a

lot of us would think that she was Beyoncé. He continued talking about his career and

said that he had been in a lot of countries as a National Geographic photographer and

this was one of the greatest things about being a photographer, the chances to visit a

lots of beautiful places. Also, he talked about all the crazy things that he had done to

achieve his job, like taking a photo hanging from a helicopter with his model near the

Hollywood sign.

As part of the conference, he called some volunteers to the stage to show the use of the

flashes to improve our photographs. This was the best part of the conference because it

was so funny, Joe McNally joked around with all the people on the stage and with the

translators too, he was a very charismatic person.

The photos that he took to the volunteers were amazing, in my opinión, and the most

important thing (in my opinion too) was that he didn’t achieve the perfect photo at the

first shot, he shot one, two, three, a lot of times, he was using flashes, diffusers and a lot of

photographic accessories until he was satisfied with the photo, something that we should

consider at the moment of taking our own photos.

After all this job, there was a break of 10 minutes, then, Joe McNally answered some

questions from the audience. I was interested in which of all his jobs like photographer

was the most important to him, but he never chose me (I was on one extreme of the

auditorium), but he chose a girl that wanted to know what his favorite photo was. He

said that he had a lot of favorite pictures, but, definitely, the photo that he most loved,

was a photo of his wife that he brought with him every place he went.

After the questions, a lot of people in the audience wanted to have a photo with Joe,

including me, so, after an hour, I could finally step onto the stage and get a photo; also,

he signed the bag that was given to us at the beginning of the conference.

The presentation of the

conference “The Laungaje

of the Light”.

The Diana Ross photo.

The photo were the model

and Joe McNally were

hanging from a helicopter

in Hollywood.

In the stage with a

volunteer (Oscar).

The photos of Oscar.

With the Fotofestín team.

The photo of a couple of

volunteers.

Answering questions.

Joe McNally and me.